j shouts of praise (Psa. xxiv, 7-10; xlvii, 5, 6; lxviii,
] 18)" (Watson, Theol. Dictionary, s. v.). (7) Its residts to the church are : (a) the assumption of regal domin-
! ion by Christ, the head of the church (Heb. x, 12, 13 ; Eph.'iv, 8,10; Psa. lxviii) ; (6) the gift of the Holy Spirit (John xvi, 7, 14; Acts ii, 33; John xiv, 16-19); (c) the intercession of Christ, as mediator, at the right hand of God (Rom. viii, 34 ; Heb. vi, 20).
The 3d Article of the Church of England and of the
1 Protestant Episcopal Church runs thus : "Christ did
! truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sittcth, until he return to judge all men at the last day." Ihe corresponding article of the Methodist Episcopal Church is the same, omit- ting the words "with flesh, bones, and;" an omission which does net affect the substance of the article. Browne's note on this article is as follows: "It is clear" (from the account in the Goepel) that "our Lord's body, after he rose from the grave, was that bod}' in which ho was buried, having hands and feet, and flesh and bones, capable of being handled, and in which he spoke, and ate, and drank (Luke xxiv, 42, 43). Moreover, it appears that our Lord thus showed his hands and feet to his disciples at that very inter- view with them in which he was parted from them and received up into heaven. This will be ?een by
i reading the last chapter of St. Luke from verse 36 to the end, and comparing it with the first chapter of the Acts, verse 4-9; especially comparing Luke xxiv, 49, 50, with Acts i, 4, 8, 9. In that body, then, which the disciples felt and handled, and which was proved to
I them to have flesh and bones, these disciples saw our Lord ascend into heaven ; and, immediately after his ascent, angels came and declared to them that that ' same Jesus whom they had seen taken up into heaven
; should so come in like manner as the}* had seen him go into heaven' (Acts i, 11). All this, connected to-
i gether, seems to prove the identity of our Lord's body after bis resurrection, at his ascension, and so on, even till his coming to judgment, with the body in which he suffered, and in which he was buried, and so fully justifies the language used in the article of our church. But because we maintain that the body of Christ, even after his resurrection and ascension, is a true human body, with all things pertaining to the perfection of man's nature (to deny which would be to deny the important truth that Christie still perfect man as well
' as perfect God), it by no means, therefore, follows that we should deny that his risen body is now a glorified, and, as St. Paul calls it, a spiritual body.
"But, after his ascension, we have St. Paul's dis- tinct assurance that the body of Christ is a clorious, is a spiritual body. In 1 Cor. xv, we have St. Paul's assertion that, in the resurrection of all men, the body shall rise again, but that it shall no longer be a nat- ural body, but a spiritual body ; no longer a corrupt!-
ASCENSION DAY
4^4
ASCETICISM
hie and vile, but an incorruptible and glorious body (1 Cor. xv. 42-53); and this change of our bodies from natural to spiritual is expressly stated to be bearing the image of our glorified Lord— the image of that heavenly man the Lord from heaven (ver. 47-49). So, again, the glorified state of the saint's bodies after the resurrection, which in 1 Cor. xv had been called the receiving a spiritual body, is in Phil, iii, 21 said to I.,, a fashioning of their bodies to the likeness of Christ's glorious body: 'who shall change our vile body, that i! may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.' AVe must therefore conclude that, though Christ rose with the -inn' body in which he died, and that body neither did nor shall cease to be a human body, still it ac- quired, either at his resurrection or at his ascension, the qualities and attributes of a spiritual as distin- guished by the apostle from a natural body, of an in- corruptible as distinguished from a corruptible body" ( i hi Thirty-nine Articles, p. 115).
On the fact and doctrine of the ascension, see Nean- der, Life of Christ, p. 437 sq. ; Olshausen, Comm. on Acts, i, 1-11 ; Baumgarten, Apostolic History, i, 24- 28; Bossuet, Sermons, iv, 88; Watson, Sermons, ii, 21i); Farindon, Sermons, ii, 477-495; South, Sermons, iii, 1(1.) ; Bibliotkeca Sacra, i, 152 ; ii, 162 ; Knapp, The- ology, § 97 ; Dorner, Doct. of Person of Christ, vol. ii ; Barrow, Sermons, ii, 501, (i08 ; Herzog, Real-Encyklo- pi'ulie, vi, 106 ; Maurice, Theol. Essays, p. 251. Mon- ographs connected with the subject have been written, among others, by Amnion (Gott. 1800), Anger (Lips. 1830), Bose (Lips. 1741), Crusius (Lips. 1757), Deyling (05*. iii. 198), Doederlein (Opp. p. 59), Eichler (Lips. 1737), Flugge (Han. 1808), Fogtmaim (Hafn. 1826), Georgius (Viteb. 1748), Griesbach (Jen. 1793), Himly (Argent. 1811), Hasse (Regiom. 1805), Loescher (Vi- teb. 1698), Mayer (Gryph. 1704), C. B. Michaelis (Hal. 1749), Otterbein (Duisb. 1802), Schlegel (Henke's Mag. iv, 277), Setter (Erlang. 1798), id. (ib. 1803), Steen- bach (Hafn. 171 ), Weichert (Viteb. 1811), Zickier (Jen. 175s), Brennecke (Lnxemb. 1819 [replies by Hau- mann, Iken, Soltmann, Starum, Tinius, Webor, Wit- ting] i, Kikebusch (Schneeb. 1751), Korner (Sachs. Geistl. Stud, i, 10), Liebknecht (Giess. 1737), Mosheim (Helmst. 1729), Schmid (Lips. 1712), Andrea (Marb. 1676), Mahn (Lips. 1700), Remling (Viteb. 1685). See Jesus.